✈️ MAPS Framework: How I Generated $20 Million in Revenue

Welcome to First Class Founders, your favorite destination to learn how to build a loyal audience, create irresistible products, and grow your business sustainably.

Here's what we've got for you on today's flight:

• 🗺 Introducing: MAPS Framework

• 👥 The Right Way to Build An Audience

• 🚖 How to Approach Your Entrepreneurial Journey

Jetsetters, get ready — we're taking off!

✈️ Episode Itinerary

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work FOREVER in the same industry where you got your first-ever job?

Well, today’s guest Matt Giovanisci doesn't need to imagine it. Because that is exactly what he has been doing since he was 13 years old.

Over the years, Matt grew steadily within this industry and eventually ended up launching Swim University in 2006. Swim University caters to a very specific niche - homeowners with pools and hot tubs.

According to their 'About' page, "Swim University has made pool and hot tub care easy for more than 10 million homeowners." Matt has mentioned on his website that Swim University makes over $250,000 a year!

So how exactly did Matt go from pool store boy to the owner of a niche business that has served more than 10 million homeowners and made several millions of dollars in revenue?

Matt shares his entrepreneurial lessons in today’s amazing episode.

Get ready to take notes... let's get down to business!

From Pool Store Boy to Serial Entrepreneur: How Matt Giovanisci Built a Multi-Million Dollar Niche Business

Inside today's episode, you'll learn:

• How Swim University began (0:41)

• Matt’s current workload, revenue streams, and future projections (6:32)

• Using the Swim University model to launch RoastyCoffee and Brew Cabin (12:54)

• Matt's plans for revenue diversification (16:00)

• Advice for young entrepreneurs (22:34)

🥨 Growth Snack of the Week

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Introducing MAPS:

Today, I am jumping for joy. Why, you ask?

I distilled down everything I learned over the last 8 years generating $20m in revenue into my own, proprietary, simple framework: MAPS.

The MAPS framework is brilliant not only because it fits our first class airplane theme (thank you very much!), but because each component of the framework builds upon its previous components.

Let’s dig in…

Components of MAPS framework:

MAPS stands for:

• Mindset

• Audience

• Product

• Scaling

Each piece of the framework builds on its previous components.

You need the right mindset before you can build an audience.
You need the right audience before you can create your products.
You need the right products before you can scale up your operations.

I’ll summarize each part of this framework so you can map out (See what I did there?) your entrepreneurial journey.

Ready? Here we go.

Mindset:

While this component is the least actionable, it might be the most important one.

I like to think of the entrepreneurial journey as a lifelong dedication to learning.

For me, entrepreneurship is more of an approach to life rather than a scientific method of making millions overnight.

Am I an advocate for working crazy hours and burning yourself out? Absolutely not!

In fact, I believe the opposite is true. Design your entrepreneurial journey however you want!

The mindset component of MAPS is all about YOU:

• How do you want to spend your time?

• What type of meaningful work will you pursue?

• How do you want others to recognize you in 10-20 years?

Gain clarity on how you want to design your life before you choose the path you’re about to take.

Audience:

Once you gain clarity on how you want to approach your journey, it’s time to start building your audience.

Audience building is an overloaded term.

While a lot of gurus out there tell you to build an audience where you have gained expertise in, I like to think that’s only one piece to the puzzle.

The other piece, is where you see yourself in 5-10 years.

In other words, who do you want to hang out with?

It’s not enough to build an audience around your expertise.

Build your audience within communities you want to be apart of since presumably, you’ll be at this for a while.

For me, I am well-versed in the e-commerce space. It’d be far easier and faster to focus my content on solely e-commerce.

But, I’m more interested in the intersection between founders and creators within the creator economy… so here we are.

Product:

Once you’ve built a large enough audience, you can start building your product that solves a problem for your audience.

This can come in many forms.

Nearly 8 years ago, I launched Urban EDC to serve the everyday carry community by providing them a single place where they can get hard-to-find EDC items from makers.

For my wife and business partner, it was Spotted by Humphrey to serve the French bulldog community after our French bulldog became Insta-famous.

The playbook can work in any industry or niche.

For creators, this might be coaching or online courses.

But, there’s one important lesson I learned the hard way about building products. Ready?

I made this costly mistake myself. Nearly all entrepreneurs make this mistake at one point in their journey. It’s a common problem.

Run a pre-sale, gather feedback, and test your offers before you spend too much of your valuable time or money on a new project.

Scaling:

Until you have the right product / market fit, you shouldn’t scale. Simple as that. You don’t want to pour more water into a leaky bucket.

How do you know when you have product / market fit?

There’s no right or wrong answer here. But, for me?

Your audience will tell you. They’ll provide unsolicited positive feedback telling you how much they love your stuff. Some of them will even volunteer to help you shape the future of your products.

Now, the market will always evolve so it’s critical to implement feedback loops to keep iterating. Remember Kodak and Blockbuster?

Yeah, at one point, they were everyone’s favorite brands.

But they couldn’t evolve with the changing market conditions and now they’ve become a relic from the past.

This framework can apply to any type of business.

So, what do you think of my MAPS framework?

I’m particularly proud of this framework. I’ll dig more into these concepts in the future. Stay tuned!

Hope you enjoyed this week's Growth Snack! 😋 Try this out yourself and let me know on Twitter what you think! (And don't forget to share this snack with your friends!)

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💬 Final Word

Dylan from Growth Currency gave me yet another shoutout on his newsletter! Check it out for yourself…

Thank you all for reading!

I put a lot of time each week to write these and I can’t thank each of you enough. 🙌🏻

See you next week!

Yong-Soo Chung — Serial Entrepreneur, Podcaster